Nice Girls Don’t Speak Up — Which Is Why I’m No Longer a Nice Girl

Empires will topple as women find their voices…

Something is happening to me. Something wonderful that I can’t quite explain. I keep joking that I’m becoming meaner. Is that it?

I suppose that doesn’t sound wonderful, at all. But trust me, when you’ve spent your life being nice to your own detriment, being mean feels like the ultimate aspiration. Further, a nice woman’s definition of mean is probably not even in the realm of actual meanness. Women like me have so far to go that we don’t even recognize the true boundary lines of “mean.”

My mean is the average person’s early Monday morning.

And maybe this is why I’m embracing using that word. There’s something about “meanness” that feels, to me, more like “real.” The way I was groomed to be a nice girl made it impossible for me to have or express any feelings that weren’t pleasant.

And boundaries? Don’t even think about it. Nice girls don’t have boundaries.

Being socially pressured into niceness is like eating truffles filled with rat poison. Everything looks so pretty and sweet, but each bite slowly kills you.

This issue has been especially prevalent in my romantic life. I was groomed, after all, to give those higher on the social pyramid more of my agreeableness and pleasantness than anyone else — which means men have typically received all smiles from me, even when they are abusing me.

Maybe we all eventually reach a breaking point (which is accelerated, no doubt, when you are an active online presence who receives dozens of abusive comments every day). Or maybe it’s the one and only benefit of low estrogen in perimenopause: the lack of biological intervention to inspire you to grease those social wheels. Maybe it’s even the baby steps of healing that once felt impossible to make.

Whatever it is, I’m grateful. I relish this. I am filing my nails into points as I compose this.

I’m ready to step into this new phase in my life and wreak havoc in all the ways I was told not to. And as loudly as possible.

If you asked me to name the hardest lesson I’ve learned in the past few years, I’d say, without a doubt: the identification of and protection from male predators.

Now, this has been a problem throughout my entire life, but never has it been so constant since I became a regular presence online. Little did I know that the internet makes fast work of these men’s grooming tactics. It’s so much easier to manipulate women from the shadows of the cyberverse than it is to do in real life. You don’t have to worry as much about the vibe check when you’re online. That often instantaneous knowing that we can sense when we look someone in the eyes or are close enough to smell them is absent here. And any reservations we might have are so easily manipulated away with a few well-chosen words.

Oh, the things I have witnessed since I became an active presence online. The things I’ve seen other women endure. The things I have been subjected to.

I have mostly remained silent on these matters for all the obvious reasons. I’ve blamed myself. I’ve been afraid that no one would believe me (because we don’t, as a society, believe women). And, thanks to the decentralized nature of the cyberverse, I’m never sure where to take these reports. Who am I supposed to talk to, anyways? And how would I go about that without putting my work, my career, and even my life at risk?

I still don’t have answers to these questions, but I do have a new sense of emboldenment. Over the past six months, I’ve watched my female colleagues publicly call out male content creators who are exploiting women, and/or who have sexually abused and assaulted them. Many of them lost their accounts for putting out these notices, and no doubt have taken financial hits and the questioning of their reputations — even when many other women come out and speak up about abuses committed by those same male content creators.

These women have a courage that staggers me. I feel a moral obligation to grow into this courage.

I already feel I’ve done so much to speak up in ways that once felt impossible and terrifying to me. I’ve already started calling out men who abuse women online, boldly using their real names and photos of their actual faces. I’ve taken screen shots. I’ve looked them up on LinkedIn. I’m making sure their employers know how they conduct themselves on the internet.

It’s not nice, is it? But nice is irrelevant. It’s the right thing to do.

There’s a reason why so many women are victimized in this way — because we still live in a world where there are no consequences for men who behave this way. I’m not going to remain silent and allow my nieces to inherit a world in which this will also be the norm for them.

And I’m going to speak out more for my own well-being, too. I’m going to make sure every man who comes upon me in the cyberverse knows that this woman isn’t worth the “challenge” of trying to get her into bed. I keep receipts and I’m going to start using them. No more “nice.”

It occurs to me every time I’m on social media that it takes a lot of courage to speak publicly — particularly about social injustices and politics. And if you aren’t white, straight, or cis, the word “courage” doesn’t really cut it.

Calling out racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, fatphobia, and sexism is a necessary step in dismantling our dominance hierarchy, but my god, it is scary. Try telling a white, American man who has no experience in education (compared to your 10 years as a teacher and MAT) that arming teachers is not the way to solve school shootings. Try responding to him when you know his comments are a dog whistle to other white American men who will — not might, but will — descend upon you en masse in order to harass and belittle you simply because you are a woman daring to speak in support of the only known way to curtail mass shootings.

There are times when it gets overwhelming, even for occasionally brave people like me. When I shared my support of restorative justice for men who have committed sexual abuses against women (for an important reason that I’m going to omit here for the sake of brevity), I received so many comments from women accusing me of being a fake feminist, pro-rape, and an abuse-apologist, I had to temporarily deactivate my TikTok account. As a woman who has been sexually abused, assaulted, and raped, having other women say these things to me caused me to experience a severe mental health crisis.

After all was said and done, I wasn’t brave enough to stand my ground. I removed the videos in order to protect my mental health.

But when I look around at the people speaking up about the genocide occurring in Gaza, I’m in awe of their bravery. Actress Melissa Barrera bravely shared posts criticizing the Israeli government (as many people are doing because these numbers of civilian “collateral damage” are not okay and shouldn’t be okay) and was promptly fired from her role in Scream 7 for “inciting hate” (alleged antisemitism in this case) and “false references to genocide.”

She has remained solid in her position, rightly acknowledging that criticizing a government and its military is not the same thing as antisemitism. We have to be careful, of course, with antisemitism an ever-present threat, but that shouldn’t prevent us from challenging a “significantly higher than average civilian toll in all the conflicts around the world during the 20th century.” As for the accuracy of the term “genocide,” it seems like a whole lot of people are wondering, as we inch closer to 20,000 lives lost, when that term might officially be used…?

And just to be clear, international organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both condemned the United States’ diplomatic and military support of Israel, the former very clearly stating that America is risking “complicity in war crimes.”

Nevertheless, Barrera and others like her have paid a heavy price for speaking out in favor of a ceasefire. Allegations of antisemitism and inciting hate are serious, with the potential of not only damaging Barrera’s career in the long run, but destroying her character, as well. Even major media outlets are acknowledging this.

Yet still, she stands firm in her position, willing to speak up for what’s right, no matter the cost.

When you get to issues like this, you realize this has never been about being “nice” versus being “mean,” at all. It’s about disrupting abuses of power — and how hard those institutions will work to force us into silence.

I’d love to scrub the word “nice” from my vocabulary. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t do much good for anyone — except those who are actively exploiting others.

Many women have begun to deprogram from the Nice Girl conditioning. We’ve been learning how to discern the difference between “nice” and “kind,” and why that distinction is so incredibly important.

And “mean”? That word is useless in this context — except for the ways in which it has been used to control women’s behavior. You know what has been considered “mean” when it comes to women? Speaking truth.

Being vocal about abuse, calling out abusers, standing against injustices…that’s what we consider “mean.” It’s a great strategy, isn’t it?

But we’re not falling for it anymore. The era of nice, silent women has ended.

Call us whatever you want — it won’t stop me from speaking up.

© Y.L. Wolfe 2023

Y.L. Wolfe is a gender-curious, solosexual, perimenopausal, childless crone-in-training, exploring these experiences through writing, photography, and art. You can find more of her work at yaelwolfe.com. If you love her writing, leave her a tip over at Ko-fi.

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